Dragon Age: Freedom
by OldManMalaz
Summary: One decision can change innumerable lives. When Delyn Amell, an apprentice mage in Fereldan's Circle of Magi, makes his escape after fifty years of careful planning and study, he discovers the truth of this. Funny, how rarely the ones who make these decisions understand how far-reaching their actions can be.
1. Chapter 1: Lothering and the IH

Disclaimer: I do not own any material related to the Dragon Age franchise. BioWare and EA do.

Author's Note: Freedom takes place simultaneously with Origins. This is my first published fanfiction. If you have some constructive criticism (key word being constructive), then I'm all ears. If you're just going to hate on my story, then don't read it.

Chapter 1: Lothering and the Imperial Highway

My name is Delyn Amell, and if there's one thing that I was always certain of, it's that magic is not all it's cracked up to be. Sure, you could cook your dinner or dry your clothes in mere seconds with a concentrated burst of flame, or you could cool yourself down on a hot summer day with a little puff of frost or a chunk of ice, all through the manipulation of pure magical energies. And those are merely the mundane uses. But none of the things that accompanied magic were or ever have been worth the trouble, not in the least. The templars were always watching, no matter where you were or what you were doing.

They took your blood and put it into a phylactery, so they always knew where you were. Until you completed your Harrowing, they retained the right to turn you tranquil, take away your very ability to think, at any time. Perhaps the worst, however, was the Harrowing itself. Though I had not yet gone through my own Harrowing, and it was a secret that the First Enchanter and Knight-Commander guarded heavily, I knew what the Harrowing entailed. One of my best friends had failed his Harrowing, and came to me in the Fade that night while I was asleep to warn me of my potential fate.

For an apprentice's Harrowing, they were sent into the Fade to find and defeat a powerful demon in order to prove that they had mastered their magic and, therefore, themselves. Even worse than the templars' blatant disregard for their safety and their lives, was the fact that if the apprentice took too long, the templars present at the Harrowing would assume the mage had failed and kill them on the spot. All of these injustices flew through my head as I was led to the Harrowing Chamber at the top of the tower by several templars. Yes, I was only a few minutes away from undergoing my own Harrowing. Now, I know what you're asking.

If I had already recognized all of these injustices and come up with an escape plan by this point in time, then why was I still in the tower, about to go through my Harrowing, instead of spending my life on the run from the templars? The answer was quite simple, really. The Harrowing is the perfect opportunity to escape. It was the one time when most of the templars were in one place, and at the top of the tower as well. Not-to-mention, the Knight-Commander and First Enchanter were also present, so I wouldn't have to worry about possibly running into either of the two most dangerous individuals in the entire tower when I made my escape.

As we ascended the final step to the Harrowing chamber, I took a quick glance around. First Enchanter Irving and Knight-Commander Greagoir stood together near a pedestal in the center of the room. Once I got close enough, I saw what was held in the bowl atop the pedestal: pure lyrium. 'So that's how they send you into the Fade.' I thought as my eyes narrowed. Greagoir stepped towards me, and my gaze shifted towards him.

"Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him." he said, quoting the Chant of Light. In response, I simply nodded. You see, I had always taken an extremely simple approach to the templars. I never antagonized them, I had never before attempted to escape, and I had always followed every rule. I was hoping that his, combined with the large number of templars in the Harrowing chamber with me, would cause them to relax, an action that would be their downfall.

Despite this, however, I was fairly certain that they would be just as prepared for an escape attempt so soon after I entered the chamber as they would be prepared for a possession once I was in the Fade. In short, I was sure that there would be a 'sweet spot', so-to-speak, between the moment I entered the chamber, and the moment I entered the Fade. That brief lull in their watchfulness would be my opportunity to escape. I focused on Greagoir once again as he continued his little speech. "Thus spoke the prophet Andraste as she cast down the Tevinter Imperium, ruled by mages who had brought the world to the edge of ruin," he began to pace back and forth as he continued, "Your magic is a gift, but it's also a curse, for demons of the dream realm – the Fade – are drawn to you, and seek to use you as a gateway into this world."

Irving placed himself in the conversation, "This is why the Harrowing exists. The ritual sends you into the Fade, and there you will face a demon, armed with only your will." I turned to look at Irving as he came closer and circled around to my other side.

"I am ready, First Enchanter." I replied, keeping up the act so as to not arouse their suspicions.

"Know this, apprentice: if you fail, we templars will perform our duty. You will die." Greagoir said, my eyes narrowing as he finished. I desperately wanted to say that it didn't matter whether I actually failed or not, but I managed to hold my tongue in check. Greagoir continued, gesturing to the pedestal as he did so, "This is lyrium: the very essence of magic and your gateway into the Fade." I turned to my right as Irving stepped back into the conversation.

"The Harrowing is a secret out of necessity, child. Every mage must go through this trial by fire. As we succeeded, so shall you." As much as I disliked Irving for the simple fact that he willingly submitted to the Chantry's rule without so much as a thought given to freedom, he was still a powerful mage, and so my ego swelled a decent bit upon hearing his confidence in me. "Keep your wits about you and remember the Fade is a realm of dreams. The spirits may rule it, but your own will is real." His advice, however, I almost scoffed at. I already knew all of that, for I went into the Fade every time I fell asleep. I had always thought it strange that most mages spoke as though they didn't, or perhaps couldn't, do so. I had to keep from reacting when I heard Greagoir step closer from behind me.

"The apprentice must go through this test alone, First Enchanter," then, addressing me, "You are ready." As he said this, Greagoir pointed at the pedestal. I looked between the two of them, gave them both a nod, and moved towards the pedestal. A foot away from it, I reached out my hand, and as I did so, I let invisible waves of magic envelope me. As I let my arm fall back to my side, I fell further into those invisible waves and, ignoring the cry of alarm from Irving, allowed them to carry me forward, past the pedestal and the templars, and through the wall of the tower, out into the world beyond. The instant I cleared the wall, I allowed the magic to dissipate, slowing my forward momentum and allowing me to fall towards Lake Calenhad below.

As of then, I was no longer able to contain the triumphant smirk that had been waiting to be released since I entered the Harrowing chamber. As the lake sped closer, however, my grin fell. I was far from in the clear just yet. Despite how much I had hated living in Kinloch Hold, I was aware that the Circle Tower's templars were far less strict than those of other Circles. That meant they wouldn't kill me just for trying to escape, which gave me an even greater chance to get away.

Of course, they would be able to track me down wherever I went, considering that, as an apprentice, I had never been given permission to enter the reliquary. In other words, they were still in possession of my phylactery. Of course, I had known that. That was the entire reason I had chosen the escape route I did, and practiced that spell in secret for weeks on end before my Harrowing. It gave me a massive head start, and that was, truthfully, my only advantage in the situation I had placed myself.

The one thing I had not prepared for, however, was how freezing cold the water of Lake Calenhad was. I cast a quick spell to warm myself up while simultaneously thanking the Maker that I had remembered to tuck in my arms and legs so as not to break every bone in my body on contact. As soon as the spell worked its magic (pun intended), I started swimming for shore (just like another rebellious apprentice had twelve years ago). I briefly entertained the notion half-way through my swim to come up for air, but decided against it. They already had my phylactery: there was absolutely no reason to make it easier for them than that.

Finally, (I was a terrible swimmer you see) I surfaced on the shore of Lake Calenhad, and was unpleasantly surprised to discover that my robes, when wet, felt like a full suit of plate armor. The few people who lived in the absurdly tiny settlement on the lake's shore were either inside the tavern, the Spoiled Princess if I remembered correctly, or backing slowly away from the waterlogged apprentice-turned-apostate. I ignored them all, slogging as quickly as possible up the path towards the Imperial Highway. I looked back at the tower, my home for the last fifty years, only once: when I reached the top of the little hill. I felt a slight twinge of dread as I realized that my life, from then on, would never be the same.

The dread faded quickly, however, and then came the elation, and the acceptance. For better or worse, my decision had been made, my path chosen. I would make the best of it that I could, for as long as I could. "Delyn Amell!" came Greagoir's shout, sailing across the lake towards me. Taking that as my hint that I had spent too much time gawking, I used the fade step spell, as I had decided to call it, once more.

And the invisible waves of magic carried me rapidly down the Imperial Highway, away from everything I knew.

 **~:~**

Now, I'll bet you were expecting me to come out of the fade step spell once I was a few hundred feet away from the nearest town or something like that, but that's not what happened, and there are a few reasons why. First and foremost, the fade step is a continuous spell, so it naturally consumes mana continuously, and I have never had an infinite amount of that. Besides, I would've had to stop the spell long enough to use a lyrium potion (stolen from the Storage Caves a half hour before my Harrowing) as soon as my mana pool went dry, regardless of where I was when that happened. But that's beside the point. The actual reason why I stopped the spell prematurely was that I saw some fellow 'travelers' a few hundred feet down the road.

They were both human, so that at least decreased the possibility that I would be attacked on sight, or at least, that's what I was hoping at the time. Of course, I didn't have all that much time to think on that, considering that it's not the quietest sound in the world when a mage exits the fade step. One of the men, the older of the two if the creases on his forehead were any indication, was of a darker complexion, which was a sign of Rivaini heritage if I was remembering that one tome on genealogy correctly. The younger man was of a much paler complexion, and considering his seemingly flawless skin, I guessed that he was of noble birth and had never seen a day of actual battle in his life. Then again, I couldn't really judge anyone on that point.

The older man, in addition to his dark skin, had a mop of black hair pulled back into a messy ponytail with a few strands hanging loose here and there, as well as what I would call hazel eyes. The younger one had even darker hair, neck-length and well-kept, swept back out of his face with not a single lock out of place, and his eyes were a stormy gray that, for whatever reason, greatly unnerved me. Neither wore helmets, but they did both wear full suits of armor, though of drastically different kinds. Whereas the noble-born wore a full suit of studded leather armor, the Rivaini man wore a set of light plate armor the likes of which I had never seen, with the seeming bottom half of a robe covering him from the waist down. The fact that they were both armed with a sword and dagger each was the last thing I could take note of before the Rivaini man stepped forward, apparently deciding we had stared at each other for long enough.

"Hello friend. Are you also heading south to join the army at Ostagar?" That surprised me, for multiple reasons. First off, I had heard nothing of an army gathering at the old fortress once used to ward off attacks by the Chasind folk of the Korcari Wilds, although it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. The templars hardly ever told us anything of what went on outside the tower, after all. What was more surprising was the simple fact that he didn't immediately recognize me as an apostate, what with my circle robes and the absence of a templar escort, or if he did, he didn't act like anything was wrong. I may have been young when I was taken to the circle by the templars, but I remembered clearly enough how frightened most people were of mages not controlled by the Chantry.

When I answered, my response was guarded, though I highly doubt that was unexpected. And if it was, the Rivaini man did a marvelous job of hiding his reaction. "I'm heading south, but not to Ostagar," then, after a second or two, "I take it that you two _are_ heading south to join the army?" The Rivaini man smiled, but the noble-born continued to stare at me with that unnerving, calculating gaze.

"As a matter of fact, we are. King Cailan has called all of Ferelden's Grey Wardens south to fight the darkspawn, after all." he said, as casually as though he was speaking about the weather. My eyes widened involuntarily at that. Grey Wardens were the greatest warriors in Thedas, according to the legends and the various tomes I had read. Even if most or all of the stories were greatly exaggerated, I knew that they at least had the respect of First Enchanter Irving, and that was enough to have made me second-guess how easily most of the templars disregarded the Wardens. And then I remembered something. Once, only a few years after I came to the circle, there had been a Grey Warden named Duncan, a good friend of the First Enchanter if I remembered correctly, visiting the tower.

"I swear we've met somewhere before." I said, looking at Duncan, making sure to avoid mentioning the tower in any way. "Is your name Duncan, perchance?" The Rivaini man just continued to smile, but the noble-born's eyes narrowed slightly, his hand moving upwards slightly, causing my gaze to shift to him. Almost immediately, my eyes mirrored his, for I could've sworn that, as foggy as the memory was, I had seen him somewhere before as well. Before the Rivaini man had the opportunity to respond in any way, I addressed the noble-born. "And you look familiar as well." Instead of giving me his name, the noble-born asked a question of his own.

"Are you of noble birth?"

"I am. My name is Delyn, the eldest child of Lord Aristide Amell of Kirkwall, in the Free Marches." I said with conviction and perhaps a little more arrogance than an apostate with no right to hold a title or own lands was due. The noble-born matched my conviction, but not my arrogance.

"My name is Allond, youngest son of Bryce Cousland, Teyrn of Highever." As soon as he said that, I remembered it distinctly. Once, before my magical talent surfaced, my family had gone to visit Castle Highever, and though Allond hadn't been born yet, if memory served, he and his brother Fergus shared some vague resemblance to one another.

"I don't recall us ever meeting before now." Allond said, his brow raised skeptically. I allowed myself a small chuckle.

"We haven't, actually. I met your brother once when my family visited Highever... several decades ago, actually. There's a slight resemblance between you and him, or at least between you and how he looked several decades ago." As those words came out of my mouth, I took a moment to realize just how long it had been since I had seen my family. I was seven years old when my magical talent was discovered, and it had been fifty years since then. 'Damn,' I thought, before turning my attention back to Allond.

"I never noticed a resemblance between us." he said. I grinned slightly.

"He's your brother. Of course you don't." I said, his eyebrow raising slightly. My grin only widened. I remembered what it was like to have a brother. My grin fell when Duncan jumped back into the conversation.

"May I ask where you are going, if not Ostagar?"

"Lothering. My sister settled down there several years ago, and I'm on my way to visit." I said. Allond's eyebrow raised once again, most likely at the fact that my sister, a member of Kirkwall's nobility, lived in Lothering. He did not, however, say anything about it.

"Well then, since we are all heading south, what would you say to traveling with us until our paths branch off from each other?" Duncan asked. I thought quickly.

"I would, Duncan, but my sister is expecting me sometime tomorrow. It's quite important that I travel as quickly as possible."

"Of course." Duncan said, giving a small nod. I returned the nod before moving to walk past them. I could feel Allond's gaze digging into my back for the next ten minutes, until they were finally out of sight. Once they were, I fell into the fade step once more, speeding along the Imperial Highway towards Lothering. My sister did actually live there, with her apostate husband and two apostate daughters, and it was my intent at the time to get her help if I could.

 **):(**

I watched the retreating form of Delyn Amell until he was out of sight, then turned to look at Duncan. "Why didn't you try to recruit him? He was clearly a mage, and powerful at that, if he was able to escape the Circle, or at the very least resourceful and intelligent."

"He would have resisted. And we are stressed enough for time as it is." he said, continuing along the Imperial Highway, leaving me to silently contemplate his words as I fell into step behind him.

 **):(**

Over the next eight hours, I covered as much ground as possible in the fade step while stopping every few miles to allow my mana to replenish itself while taking care of any other basic needs that I had, and could take care of at that moment. By the time nine hours had passed, I figured I was only a half-hour from Lothering's outskirts when I made another stop. I was sitting cross-legged on one side of the Highway, trying to ignore the dryness in my throat and the growling of my stomach. It's kind of sad, really, that my stomach was growling so loudly I almost didn't hear the screeching noise come from behind me. I turned my head to see what was making the noise, only for my eyes to go wide right before I dropped flat on the ground.

A blade attached to a long, pale arm passed through the spot where my neck had been mere seconds before. Eyes growing ever wider, I rolled to one side as another arm-mounted blade came stabbing down from above me. Using my momentum to get onto my feet, my eyes nearly popped out of my head at what I saw. Standing behind where I had been sitting was a tall, gangly creature wearing cobbled-together metal armor, with pointed ears, a mouth full of fangs, and, as I noticed, a blade attached to either of its arms. Thanks to my decades of study in the tower, I knew what this creature was, and that fact did not make it any less intimidating or frightening.

Originally called sharlocks, shrieks were darkspawn that were once elves, and just like elves, they were lithe, agile, and more physically frail than other darkspawn. However, this was the first time I had ever seen a darkspawn and, suffice to say, nothing had ever prepared me for the experience. The twisted, tainted form of what could once have been a fair and noble individual was a horrific sight, whether you were prepared for it or not. Unfortunately, the shriek was not content to let me keep thinking on the experience. Another screech sounded from behind me, and this time I reacted immediately, ducking low just as yet another bladed arm punched through the empty space that my head had just been filling.

Still ducking low, I spun away from both of the shrieks, making sure to keep them both in my line of sight as I stood to my full height once again. Glancing quickly back and forth between them both, I let a small flame burst to life in the palm of my left hand, remembering that darkspawn were supposed to be no more intelligent than clever animals. Even clever animals are frightened by fire, after all. Unfortunately, the shrieks were unimpressed. Even more unfortunately, that little spark of fire was the most I could manage with the small amount of mana I had regained before they attacked.

Suddenly, there was just empty space where one of the shrieks had been standing seconds before, and that same shriek was hunkered down low a foot or two away from me, its arm-blade swinging towards my midsection. I arched my back to get out of the way, though the blade still sliced through my robes and drew blood on my stomach. I stumbled back a step, gingerly touching the gash on my stomach. I brought the two fingers up to my face, looking at the, thankfully, small amount of blood on the tips of my fingers. The same shriek lunged again, but this time I was ready for it.

As it drew closer, instead of moving out of the way, I stepped into the arc of its arm, lashing out with my right hand to grab the back of its head. Before it could react, I shoved the flame still held in my left hand directly into its face. The shriek, well, shrieked as its skin boiled and melted off (by the Maker that's a smell), but I wasn't done just yet. I used the tiny bit of mana I had left to magically inject the shriek with a corrosive poison through the hand holding its head. I grit my teeth in pain as the other shriek's blade bit into my side, and retaliated by smothering my magical flame with the face of the first shriek and using that hand to shove it into the second shriek.

The first shriek lashed out wildly with one arm blade, but I had already hopped backwards in anticipation of my second spell's explosive result. The shriek let loose an even more high-pitched scream as its accomplice rushed past it to continue the assault, but right as it did so, the first shriek exploded in a shower of blood and gore, sending the second shriek flying to the side. My mana all but gone, I quickly moved over to the second one, which was already beginning to climb to its feet, and slammed my knee into its head, causing it to collide with the stone siding of the Imperial Highway. The creature fell back to the ground, and I brought my shoe down on its head, continuing to do so until the creature stopped twitching. Breathing heavily from the exertion, the only real physical exercise, if you could call fighting for your life an exercise, that I had had in nineteen years, I fell onto my rear, which turned out to not be the most comfortable experience, what with the fact that the Imperial Highway was made of stone.

"So these are what the army at Ostagar is about to fight? I hope the legends of the Grey Wardens' prowess aren't as exaggerated as everyone makes them out to be." I muttered to myself. Had it not been for my magic, I would have died then and there, especially considering how little physical activity it apparently took to wind me. "That's actually quite sad." I mumbled. Then I remembered my two new scars-to-be. I wasn't worried about the one on my stomach, but I hadn't yet checked the one on my side.

Turning slightly to get the best look at it I could, I spread open the gash in my robes, and winced at the sight. If the gash on my stomach was a ditch, then the one on my side was a canyon. I closed my eyes to pray to the Maker for a moment. What I was about to do was going to hurt worse than anything else ever had. A mage regains his or her mana every second that they're not casting a spell, so the minute or two that I had taken to kill the second shriek, and then rest, had worked relative wonders.

I once again summoned a small flame into the palm of my right hand, took a deep breath, and shoved it against the gash on my stomach. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming at the pain as I held the flame there for a few seconds. As soon as I pulled it away, I brought my left hand up to the cauterized wound to ensure that I had closed the whole thing. I didn't waste any time between checking the first cauterized wound and beginning to cauterize the second one. I almost blacked out that time around, the pain was so intense.

After about a minute, I cut off the spell, falling onto my back as I did so. "If this is what life as an apostate is like, I won't survive the week." I said between ragged breaths. I laid there in that same spot for what seemed like an hour, but could've been anywhere between an hour and a minute. Suffice to say, my sense of time was not the best, considering the circumstances. Finally, after however long it actually was, I picked myself up off of the ground, trying to ignore what was left of the stinging pain coming from my brand new scars. 'On the bright side, they say a lot of women find scars rather attractive.' I thought in an, admittedly, vain attempt to ignore the pain.

Despite how close Lothering was, I elected to use the fade step for the rest of the trek, both because that would hopefully make up for any advances the templars had made during my brief battle and the rest that followed, and because the fade step would make it impossible for me to be physically attacked until I 'phased' back into the mortal realm. Perhaps I should explain, in greater detail, just how the fade step spell worked. Essentially, I allowed myself to slip out of the mortal realm and into the fade, and because the fade mirrored the world of mortals, I could move at a normal pace in the fade, while simultaneously moving ten times faster than an ordinary person could in the mortal realm. This allowed me to shorten my travel time considerably. Allowing the invisible waves of magic to roll over me for the fourth time that day, I fell back into the fade and continued along on the final stretch of my journey.

 **{:}**

As Delyn fell into the fade, an abnormally tall, thin, pale-skinned figure dressed in ornate robes watched him. Behind him stood two shrieks. He glanced back at them, then gestured with one long, thin finger towards the fading stream of magic that was Delyn. "Follow him. Do not attack." he rasped, the two shrieks silently leaping onto the Highway and bounding off after him. The ashen-skinned emissary smiled, though with his horribly malformed and twisted visage, it looked far more like a grimace. With that, blackish-gold waves of magic enveloped him, and he seemingly blinked out of existence.

 **{:}**

When I exited the fade next, I was still perhaps a few hundred feet away from the ramp on the right of the Highway that was the de facto entrance to Lothering. Once again, I stopped because there was a group of men in between me and said ramp. Each of them wore a full suit of either regular leather or studded leather armor, and they had various assortments of weapons on their backs, from daggers and swords to bow and crossbows. That, the fact that they were just standing around as though they were waiting for someone, and the crates, broken carriages, and dead bodies around them did little to put me at ease. 'Highwaymen' I thought, my eyes narrowing.

I could have re-entered the fade and easily slipped past them, but I wasn't certain that they hadn't seen me yet, and it wouldn't pay to reveal my status as a mage outside the Circle. Unfortunately, by the same token, if it looked like it would come to blows between myself and the highwaymen, I couldn't use my magic to intimidate them. In hindsight, it was actually rather stupid of me to come out of the fade in the first place, although, it also would have been stupid to exit the fade once I was in Lothering, most-likely surrounded by templars, so I suppose the course I took was, in fact, my only real option at the time. Unfortunately, my next decision was made for me when the highwaymen all moved to the center of the Highway. Clearly, they had seen me.

I let out a heavy, perhaps a little melodramatic, sigh before moving towards them. One of them, whom I assumed to be the leader, stepped forward, in front of the rest of them, and exclaimed by way of initiating the conversation. "Greetings friend!" Thankfully, he didn't waste any time on preamble, and instead got straight to business. "Just a mere ten silvers, and you're free to pass." Before I could say anything in response, one of the other highwaymen, a big, dumb-looking man, practically interjected on my behalf.

"I don't know. He don't look like no refugee, he ain't got no wagons or nothin', an' he jus' showed up outta nowhere. He could be one a them mages. Maybe we should jus' let 'im by." I had to suppress a grin at the thought that I might be let past without actually having to do a thing. Unfortunately, my stroke of good luck wasn't starting just then.

"Nonsense Hanric. Everyone has to pay. That's why its a toll, and not, say, refugee tax." the leader said, convincing his less-than-intelligent companion.

"Oh, right. Even if you're no refugee, ya still gotta pay." If they weren't going to let me pass without trouble, I would combine a little bit of superstition with more than a little bit of commoner's ignorance regarding all things magic.

"Good luck with that." I said, grinning maliciously. I took a few steps backwards, allowing some very subtle magic to slip through the veil. The highwaymen all shivered as a powerful gust of cold wind ripped through the air from directly behind me, hitting them all perfectly. The highwaymen, shocked into silence, began to slowly back up, their expressions ranging from mild fear to heart-wrenching terror. They all gasped as I allowed mist to fill the air behind me, fog seeping up from the ground beneath me, both moving steadily towards the now-terrified bandits.

'One final push' I thought, allowing bright, eerie lights to appear inside the fog, flashing repeatedly in various, constantly changing patterns. And that was all she wrote. The highwaymen ran screaming in the opposite direction, each of them trying to clamber over one of the over-turned wagons they had set up as a makeshift barricade. Trying desperately to keep myself from laughing out loud, I cut off all of the spells as I moved towards the ramp off of the Highway. The highwaymen would come crawling back before long, but that wasn't my concern.

Besides, eventually someone would come along, probably after whatever battle was set to occur at Ostagar, that would truly be more than those vultures could handle. 'They'll get what's coming to them," I thought as I passed the refugee camp just outside the village, 'I just have larger concerns at the moment.' I grimaced as I entered the village proper. The man positioned to greet, or perhaps turn away, refugees fleeing the darkspawn horde was a templar. Just my luck.

He addressed me as soon as I came close. "You there! If you're looking for safe shelter, you won't find it here." I simply smiled.

"Actually, I'm not a refugee. I came south across the waking sea from Kirkwall, in the free marches. Visiting family, you see."

"Why would you be heading south for something like that with a horde of darkspawn approaching _from the south_?" I couldn't see his expression behind his helmet, but the confusion was clear in his voice. I shrugged.

"There hasn't been much word of the darkspawn that far north. I didn't really hear anything about that until I came into port in Amaranthine. By then, I was already in Ferelden, and I had heard about the army being called to gather at Ostagar. I figured since the King's armies were going to be holding off the horde before it had a chance to get to Lothering, I could still make it there in time, maybe convince my sister to head farther north." The templar thought on that for a moment, but then, thankfully, he accepted the lie.

"Well, I wish you luck in convincing your sister to do so." With that, the templar went back to his own business, leaving me to mine. I was actually rather surprised at how easy that had been. I had always figured the templars outside the circle would be just as vigilant as those in it. But then, he was probably quite distracted at the time. I went to move away from him, only for it to occur to me that I had no idea where in Lothering my sister lived.

Wary of interacting with a templar for any longer than needed, I turned back to him making sure to keep my warm and friendly facade up. "Sorry to bother you again, ser, but do you by chance know where Leandra Amell lives? That's my sister, and she neglected to give me directions the last time she wrote, you understand." He nodded, though whether he sympathized with my predicament, I couldn't tell.

"I don't know anyone by the name of Amell, but there is a Leandra Hawke living in a small house on the very edge of the village." he said, gesturing in the direction of a short stone bridge over a small stream. I smiled and nodded, thanking him before apologizing once again for the inconvenience. I moved off in the direction he had indicated, crossing the bridge and continuing through the small village until I reached the far edge, beyond the fences that closed off that side of the village. Oddly enough, I passed a very large man inside a cage. Not wanting to get involved in whatever was going on there, I instead continued on along the edge of the village, knocking on the door of each house and asking for Leandra Hawke.

At the fourth house I tried, a young woman with long black hair and orange-brown eyes came to the door with a simple 'yes'. I had to fight to keep my grin in place. The young woman couldn't possibly have been Leandra, unless of course my sister had aged quite a large bit better than I had. I still tried, however, so you can't fault me there.

"Hello there. Does a Leandra Hawke live here, by any chance?" I asked with a smile so strained, I could only imagine she could tell I was fighting to keep it there. Imagine my immense relief when the woman turned her head and called back into the house.

"Mother! There's someone here to see you!" Almost immediately afterwards, I heard footsteps reverberating through the wooden floors of the small home. Oddly enough, however, it sounded like there were two sets of feet. Less than a moment later, two more women rounded the corner just beyond the door. One looked to be only a few years older than the young woman who had come to the door, with short black hair and vibrant blue eyes. The other woman, however, definitely looked like my sister, and she looked the right age as well. She had medium-length gray hair and gray eyes. Then, I would have had to fight to keep the smile _off_ of my face.

I can only assume I took a little longer to start explaining than the three women were okay with, because after perhaps a minute of myself just standing there, smiling like an idiot, the older of the three women asked, "Can I help you, serah?"

"Damn Leandra. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one the years haven't been the kindest to." I said, my grin never fading. She looked taken aback for a minute, before she stepped a little bit closer and narrowed her eyes. Then came the reaction I had been hoping for.

"Delyn!" she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I returned the gesture.

"It's been far too long, sister." I whispered, elated to finally see at least part of my family again.

 **~:~**

After Leandra and I finished our reunion, and she introduced me to her daughters, Bethany and Adrianna (the youngest and oldest, respectively) she led me into their home and we all sat down at the dinner table. "I'll be right back Delyn. I have something for you." Leandra said, moving off into another part of the house. I turned to look at Bethany when she began to talk. Or rather, interrogate.

"So you're mother's oldest sibling?" she asked. I nodded in response, and she continued. "She told us you were taken to the Circle a few years after she was born." I nodded once again. She seemed confused. "So, you escaped?" Another nod. At this, Adrianna started laughing, although giggling was probably a better word for it. Bethany and I both turned to look at her, but she had a hard time getting what she wanted to say out through the laughing fit.

"Mother _didn't_ tell us that you were a mute, uncle." she managed to say, her laughter starting to die down. I narrowed my eyes at her, albeit playfully. 'So she was laughing at her own little jab, eh?' I thought.

"And your mother neglected to tell _me_ that her oldest child is actually the Royal Fool." I said. This only caused a mischievous gleam to enter her eyes. "You didn't think you were the only person with a sense of humor, did you, niece?" I asked, purposefully looking away from her and towards Bethany. "My apologies for letting my inner 'mute' slip through. I didn't do much talking at the Circle. Mostly just studying and scheming." I said, this seemingly making Bethany even more curious.

"How did you escape? How long have you been on the run? What kind of things did you study? What is it actually like in the Circle?" she asked question after question, not relenting long enough to actually let me answer any of them.

"Alright Bethany, one question at a time." I said, chuckling. I held up one hand, and raised one finger. "You asked how I escaped from the Circle. Put simply, I used a spell to temporarily enter the Fade and 'phase' through the wall of the tower's top floor." There was something of a look of awe in both of their eyes when I mentioned the fade step spell. 'That's right,' I thought, remembering that Leandra had told me in one of her letters that both of her daughters were mages. I also, unfortunately, remembered that she had written me about three years ago to tell me of her husband's death.

Shaking my head a little to clear away such sorrowful thoughts and get my mind back on track, I held up a second finger and said, "I have been on the run for less than a day now. Thanks to the spell I just mentioned, however, I have a considerable head start on the templars." I neglected to mention the shrieks that had attacked me. They knew full-well by now that the darkspawn were on their way. I held up a third finger. "I studied just about everything, from tomes filled with spells, to countless maps of Thedas and all the nations in it, even bestiaries containing information on countless creatures from all across Thedas." Finally, I held up the fourth finger. "Fereldan's Circle of Magi is far less strict than some others, but its still no way for any living creature to live. You are constantly watched by the templars. You are never alone. Everything you do, every move you make, is watched like a hawk. Privacy isn't even an illusion in the Circle." I could practically sense the mischief rolling off of Adrianna as I finished answering Bethany's questions.

I turned to look at the older girl, not in the least surprised to see her grinning impishly. "What did you need so much privacy for, uncle?" she asked with mock innocence in her voice, though the effect of that was ruined by the suggestive waggling of her eyebrows.

"Oh you know, the usual things mages do. Preparing spells, concocting potions, etching runes, carving the occasional staff. Those kinds of things." I replied, my face deadpanned. She only snickered. "What about you, Adrianna? Any questions?" I asked. She thought for about half a second before answering.

"Nope. That was about it, uncle." I snorted.

"Good to see you're so easily amused." I said dryly, though I was, in truth, rather amused. Adrianna just grinned, clearly also amused at herself. I looked up and away from Adrianna when Leandra came back into the room, holding a bundle of dark gray and red cloth embroidered with gold. On top of the bundle were resting a pair of leather gloves with metal fingers, a pair of leather boots, and a gold staff with a heavy iron weight on one end and a carved woman with her arms pointed behind her and a broken circle behind her arms on the other end. I felt one eyebrow crawl upwards.

Leandra smiled sadly. "As much as I would love for you to stay and talk for a while longer, Delyn, you can't afford to." I stood from the chair as she held the bundle and staff out to me. "These belonged to Malcolm." I cast a quick glance towards Bethany and Adrianna when she said that, and both of them now looked considerably downcast. Hesitant, I ventured a guess.

"Your husband?" She simply nodded. Sighing, I said, "Leandra, I can't take these. Not if they're all you have left of him." She smiled sadly.

"But they're not. I have Bethany and Adrianna, and my son Carver." That spawned a little curiosity in me.

"Speaking of, where is Carver?" Adrianna answered me, and not jokingly this time around.

"He's with the army at Ostagar." My head snapped around to look at her in surprise, then directly back to Leandra. She shrugged.

"You try getting a young man to stay cooped up in a tiny house with his family." I gave her a small smile.

"Point taken. But still-"

"Take them, uncle. Maybe then you might actually stand a chance of surviving long enough to see us again. Maker knows you couldn't without them." Adrianna said, sticking her tongue out at me. I grinned.

"Oh, you'll pay for that one the next time I see you, niece." Then, turning back to Leandra, "All right, if you're all dead-set on giving these to me," I looked to Bethany for support, but she looked at everything other than my face, "I guess I'll take them." I reached out and took them from her, flashing them all a small smile before falling into the Fade momentarily to change into the combination robes/plate armor that the bundle had consisted of. When I fell back out of the Fade, my apprentice robes folded up in one hand and the staff in the other, I was amused to see Bethany and Adrianna looking at me in awe. "I'll teach you two that spell the next time we see each other." I said, chuckling.

I hugged each of them one last time, the staff now resting on my back and my apprentice robes, at Leandra's suggestion, held tightly in Bethany's arms. I could only assume she held them so tightly because she was thinking this would be both the first and last time she would ever see her uncle. I looked at the three of them and smiled. "Chins up. I'm free now, and I promise, you _will_ see me again. But before I go." I said, taking the staff off of my back as I finished that last sentence. Concentrating, I began to magically carve two words into the staff, one word on either half of the broken circle at the top. When I was finished, I announced the staff's new name. "Malcolm's Honor." I looked at the three of them with a sad smile. "What do you think?"

Adrianna answered, also smiling. "I think you and father would have gotten along famously." My smile widened a little at that. A gave them each one last hug, and then turned to leave. As I opened the door, I turned my head one last time and gave them a wink. If only my true feelings had matched my bravado. I wasn't any more certain than they that I would live long enough to see them again. But, looking back, I suppose nothing is ever certain. All you can do is hope that it turns out the way you'd like.

 **~:~**

After closing the door behind me, I took a brief moment to take stock of everything and decide my next course of action. Of course, considering I really only had one real course I could take at that moment, that really only amounted to taking stock. 'I escaped the Circle, met two Grey Wardens, killed a few darkspawn, sent a couple of bandits screaming for their mothers, and met my sister and her daughters after fifty years in the Circle.' I thought, counting off each 'achievement', we'll call them, with my fingers. I whistled quietly. "Considering I literally sat in a tower and read books for fifty years, I think today," I said before amending my statement after looking at the position of the moon in the sky, "Or rather, _yesterday_ , was the most eventful day of my life." I let out a quiet chuckle. "How sad is that? Fifty-seven years old, and my life is only now becoming eventful?" I shook my head, still chuckling, before allowing my mirthful smile to fall from my face, replaced with an emotionless mask.

I turned around, though, when I heard the door to Leandra's house open. I was a little surprised to see Adrianna standing in the doorway with a porcelain mask held out to me. I looked at the mask, then back at her with a quizzical expression on my face. She gave a sincere smile as she held it further out towards me, rather than the devious grin I already associated with her. "Mother forgot to give you this. Father used to wear it when he was doing mercenary work to keep food on the table before we settled in Lothering. I figured it couldn't hurt for an apostate at large to keep his face hidden." Returning her smile, I took the mask, turned it around, and placed it on my face. It was strange, looking through the slightly narrowed eye holes. Thankfully, the mask didn't really hinder my vision all that much. Even if it did, I remembered a few spells that I could use to augment my sight in various ways.

"Thank you, Adrianna." I gave her another quick hug, then turned to leave. Before I actually did, however, I turned back around and addressed my eldest niece one last time. "Adrianna, tell Bethany what I'm about to tell you, alright?" She nodded, a curious expression on her face, one that gained a hint of confusion when I allowed a smile onto mine. "To do the fade step spell," I began, my smile widening when her eyes did the same, "You simply need to allow invisible waves of magic to roll over and envelope you. In that way, you can enter the fade while awake and move within it, enabling you to move much faster than normal, and move through solid objects or even other people here in the mortal realm." I explained. She grinned and nodded to let me know that she would share that knowledge with Bethany. "And now," I said, "Your new goal is to master the fade step before you see me again. The next time I see you all, you can show me that you've mastered that spell even faster than I managed to." I finished, patting my niece on the head since I figured that was something uncles did, though she didn't seem too pleased (probably because she was a fully grown woman by then).

Turning to leave once again, I fell into the fade and sped off in the direction of the other ramp back onto the Imperial Highway, opposite the one I had used to enter Lothering. If I had been possessed of a corporeal form at that moment, I would have let loose with a grin every bit as impish as my eldest niece's. After all, to put it bluntly, I had scared the shit out of those bandits on my way into Lothering, and it would only be fitting if I did so again upon _leaving_ Lothering. So, once I took the ramp back up onto the Highway, I turned left rather than right, speeding straight through the makeshift barricade the highwaymen had put up. I passed directly through one of them, freezing him solid, before falling out of the Fade and sliding to a halt.

Turning to look at the highwaymen, who appeared to have only just regained enough courage to set back up on that side of the barricade, I removed Malcolm's, I mean _my_ mask, showing them my face. They instantly started cowering, and, for the final touch, I gave them a quick little "boo!", and they all scattered, once again scrambling over each other to get away from me, crying in terror. I shook my head, actually cackling at their expense, before falling back into the Fade and speeding off once again.

 **~:~**

I spotted the templars several hours later when I rounded a bend in the Highway. 'Just what I was hoping for,' I thought, knowing the only reason a group of templars of any size would be outside the Circle and not escorting a mage (which these ones weren't) would be if they were hunting an apostate. Furthermore, so far as I was aware, I was the only mage who had escaped the Circle any time recently. There were nine templars, all constantly looking in every possible direction, if the constant moving of their helmets was any indication. Each of them had a shield and sword on their back, and they all wore the standard templar armor. I took in each of these details in a matter of seconds as I rapidly approached the templars.

While still in the fade step, I passed through one of them, freezing him solid, and fell out of the Fade immediately afterward, spinning on my heel. As I did so, I took Malcolm's Honor off of my back and swung it at the frozen templar in one smooth motion, shattering him into pieces, instantly falling back into the Fade and retreating about a hundred feet in the direction they had come from before falling out of it once again. I knew they wouldn't care that they didn't know if it was me underneath the mask or not: their 'sacred duty' was to hunt and capture all apostates, kill them if they resorted to blood magic. My entire ensemble, as well as Malcolm's Honor, however, did in fact seem to give them pause. The outfit and staff really did give off the impression of a hardened apostate, not an apprentice mage (though an admittedly knowledgeable one) fresh out of the tower.

Their hesitation allowed me to make the first move. I lashed out with pure elemental energy, petrifying another of the templars, turning him into solid stone, effectively incapacitating him. The other seven templars were galvanized into moving forward by this, but before they could get far I used that same elemental energy to launch a conjured stone projectile towards the petrified templar, shattering him and sending deadly, stone shrapnel flying at each of his compatriots. Unfortunately, their armor turned out to be quite effective, which I supposed was why they chose to wear it. Of course, even running towards me now with swords and shields drawn, they still had a decent bit of ground to cover before they could reach me, which gave me plenty of time to pick them off. I grinned behind the mask as an idea came to me.

"Time to show off my inner flamboyance." I muttered, beginning to swing and twirl Malcolm's Honor in intricate patterns, flinging bolts of pure Fade energy shaped into armored fists at the templars, sometimes one per swing, other times multiple bolts. Unfortunately, the distance between us was still great enough that, now the templars were on guard, I couldn't really surprise them, so instead of being effective, my basic attacks just bounced off of their shields. So instead, I slammed Malcolm's Honor into the ground, simultaneously sending three more bolts flying towards one templar and sending pure energy along the ground towards another. When the latter reached its target, a massive spirit arm came out of the ground and grabbed the templar by the head, squeezing until it popped in a shower of blood, then throwing the corpse at two other templars. The three bolts, like the rest before them, bounced off of their target's shield, but before they could dissipate, I reached out with my free hand and took direct control of them.

I swung my arm, sending one of the bolts coming in from the side, the spectral fist colliding with the templar's jaw, sending him reeling. Closing my fist and then swinging it downwards, the two remaining bolts combined into one larger fist and flew downwards towards the templar, slamming into the back of his head so hard that his neck snapped. "Four down, five to go." I muttered, grinning under the mask at finally being able to do something about my oppressors. The templars, now reduced to half their effective strength, slowed down their advance, and in response, I made a show of how little effort I was putting into defeating them. I planted the bottom of Malcolm's Honor on the ground, wrested my arms on the top, and leaned against it. "Now, how should I handle the rest of you?" I asked, just loud enough for them to hear, though I was actually thinking about it, not just taunting them.

"Primal? No, fireballs and lightning bolts are just so... unoriginal. Though I do like lightning. Maybe a combination? But what other School should I use? Entropy? No: too boring. Obviously not Creation. And I don't particularly feel like using any Spirit spells at the moment. So what then...?" I debated to myself, ignoring the templars still slowly advancing, and then, I remembered an obscure form of magic I had learned several years ago from an old, almost ancient, tome I found in the Circle Tower. "Now, that could work." Gathering my power, I waited for about a minute before lashing out once more, casting a spell in the center of the group of five. Only one of the templars noticed the powerful gravity well I had conjured in time to get away from it. The other four were not so lucky.

The four templars caught in the gravity well stumbled over themselves trying to get away, but it was too late for them. They were already caught, and the spell's gravity only got stronger over time. It only took five seconds for the spell to reach its zenith, at which point all four templars were dragged to the ground and pulled into one big pile. 'Perfect.' I thought, thrusting lifting my empty hand towards the sky before swinging it downwards. And just as the gravity well terminated itself, the templars falling away from each other, a massive lightning bolt fell from the sky and struck one of them directly in the chest, killing him instantly. The other three tried to get away, but the lightning leapt from their comrade's corpse to each of them. Two of them convulsed until they dropped dead, just as much smoking corpses as the one struck by the initial bolt. The third got lucky.

I saw the electricity leaping around his body before it finally dissipated completely, the templar falling to one knee. I moved to swing Malcolm's Honor and finish him off with a simple bolt, only to stop dead as the last remaining templar, rather than continuing to advance, stepped up to his fallen comrade, leaned down, and drew his blade across the kneeling templars' throat, blood spraying outwards onto the ground. Now thoroughly confused, but not willing to drop my guard, I lowered Malcolm's Honor, but continued to gather my power, just in case. The templar, to his credit, cleaned off his sword on the 'skirt' of the templar he had just killed before returning it, as well as its shield, to their positions on his back.

The templar turned to look at me, and when he said nothing, I narrowed my eyes. "Why?" It was a simple-enough question to answer, but rather than do just that, the templar instead reached up to grab his helmet, and removed it. Or rather, _her_ helmet. The woman looked to be no more than ten years younger than myself, her pure black hair (with a single streak of gray) pulled back into a messy bun, with pale green eyes vibrant enough for the color to be seen despite the forty feet between us, and fair, flawless skin. Not-to-mention, I had to grudgingly admit that she was quite attractive, though it was _very_ grudgingly. Then, I looked at her a little more closely. I recognized her.

"Relena? That was your name, yes?" I asked, her only response a simple nod. She had arrived at the tower when she was six, ten years after I had been brought there. Even with the fact that she had been at the tower for forty of the fifty years I had been, I wouldn't have recognized her if it weren't for one very important fact: for whatever reason, ever since she had taken her vows upon being knighted as a full member of the Order, she had watched me far more closely than any of the other mages. In fact, it was her that had ensured I never really had any privacy in the tower. Of course, recognizing her didn't change anything.

"Yes, that is my name. And you are Delyn Amell." she said, and I (once again, _grudgingly_ ) admitted to myself that her voice had a certain melodic quality to it. I took off the mask and hung it from one of my new belts.

"Damn. And here I thought the mask actually worked." I said, pretending to be disappointed.

"It would have, had we not both spent most of our lives in the tower." I nonchalantly leaned on Malcolm's Honor once again.

"But there lies the difference, doesn't it? You _chose_ to spend the rest of your days in that damn tower. When was I ever given a choice?" I challenged. She glared daggers at me.

"I am not here to argue with you over whether the fate of mages is right." she said through gritted teeth.

"You're right. That's not why you're here. You're here to fulfill your 'sacred duty'," I said the last two words with air quotes and a hint of mocking in my voice, "So why didn't you fight to the death like your friends there?" I finished, gesturing to the eight armor-clad corpses behind her. She didn't even bother to look at them, still glaring at me.

"Because it's obvious I can't defeat you alone. Where nine failed, one cannot succeed-"

"Well that depends on the one, doesn't it?" I interrupted.

"Furthermore, there is no point in needlessly throwing my life away. So I have decided I will do my sacred duty, _and it is sacred_ , in another way." I narrowed my eyes.

"Oh? And just what 'other way' would that be?" I asked, a dangerous tone in my voice. Her face and voice were both entirely deadpan.

"I will accompany you." I almost spit, and I wasn't even drinking anything.

"Like hell you will!" Her eyes gained a hard glint to them.

"I cannot hope to bring you back to the Circle on my own, and you have not turned to blood magic, so I cannot kill you. Therefore, the only option left to me is accompanying you. That way, I can continue to monitor you, and should you succumb to temptation and use blood magic, then I will kill you, if I can." My eye almost started twitching.

"You 'continuing to monitor me'," more air quotes, "Is kind of the exact opposite of the freedom I was looking for when I escaped from the tower yesterday." I said. She just continued to glare at me. "You are not coming with me, damnit!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.

"Yes. I am." My eye actually started twitching then, and I almost wanted to start tearing my hair out. She seemed to realize this. "You only have two options here, Delyn Amell." I turned my head to look at her with a dangerous glint in my eyes. "Either you accept the fact that I _am_ going to accompany you, or you can kill me. And I have no intention of attempting to kill you, because I already know I can't, and it would, therefore, be entirely illogical." My eye twitched a few more times, and when my _other_ eye started twitching alongside it, I screamed out loud.

"No templar I have ever met, not even Greagoir, has ever been this damn infuriating!" I shouted at her. Naturally, she was unimpressed.

"Make your choice, apostate." I growled under my breath, before starting to pace.

"There isn't a damn thing I can say to convince you, is there?" I asked, glancing at her. She shook her head, causing me to growl again. I stopped pacing after a minute, turned to look at Kinloch Hold in the distance, then turned again and looked in the direction of Lothering. I honestly don't even remember what was going through my head at this point, I was so infuriated. Finally, I turned back around once again to look at her. "Fine. You can _accompany_ me. But I have three conditions." I said, holding up three fingers.

"And those would be?"

"One: don't ever call me apostate again. Two: don't ever call me apostate again." I stopped for emphasis before continuing. "Three: my phylactery is destroyed, right here, right now." I braced myself, waiting for her to refuse and us to finish this idiotic argument violently.

"Fine." she said, turning around and moving towards one of her fallen comrades. My jaw was on the ground. She rolled over one of the dead templars, pulling a small glass vial out of his belt, before dropping it on the ground, standing up, and stomping on it. She turned back around and walked towards me. "There."

"You're actually serious." I said, and her only response was to cross her arms, cock one hip, and nod. I looked up at the sky, then, talking to it as though the Maker himself was listening. "Really? Forty years in the tower, deprived of my private time because of her," I pointed at Relena, "And now you stick her with me _again_?" I ignored her slowly-rising eyebrow. "A MAN NEEDS HIS PRIVATE TIME, DAMNIT!" I screamed at the sky. I took a moment to catch my breath, then turned to look at her.

"Are you done now?" she asked, eyebrow still cocked.

"Yes. I'm done." I sighed, turning away from Lothering once again, continuing along the Imperial Highway. Relena moved more quickly than I was until she caught up, at which point she fell into stride beside me.

"So where are we going?" she asked. I glanced at her briefly, before looking ahead once again as I put my mask back on.

"We need to get out of Ferelden. You know your fellows won't stop hunting me just because my phylactery isn't at their disposal any longer. And I don't think they'll care much that you are keeping an eye on me." I replied.

"Unfortunately, you are correct." I nodded, both of us falling silent, and I thought that was the end of the conversation. It wasn't. "We could go west, over the Frostback Mountains." she suggested. I snorted.

"Into Orlais, the seat of the Chantry's power? Not the best plan for an apostate." I rebuffed, hoping that we were done talking. Of course, because the Maker has a sense of humor, we weren't.

"Well then, what about Orzammar?" she asked. "The Chantry has no power there, and the dwarves do not fear mages." I stopped then, suddenly enough that she was caught off guard, stopping a little bit in front of me. "What is it?" she asked.

"I understand you wanting to tag along to keep an eye on the potential maleficar, but why are you offering advice? What do you care if the templars catch me, so long as I don't turn to blood magic?" I asked. Strangely enough, that offended her quite a bit. She narrowed her eyes at me.

"If you don't want a templar's help, Amell, all you have to do is say so. Would you prefer I be your silent watcher, like back in the tower? Would that make you feel more free?" she asked, her voice rising with each sentence spoken. I was honestly a little bit taken aback. I looked away from her, and back towards Lothering once again.

"Sorry." I said quietly after a minute. Before she could say anything in response, I continued walking, Relena falling into step beside me once again. We walked on in silence for several minutes, perhaps half an hour at most. She spoke first, and I turned to look at her out of the corner of my eye.

"Perhaps it's foolish of me, but I feel as though we grew up together. We were both brought to the tower at a young age, and we both spent almost all our lives there. So yes, I wanted to come with you in order to stop you if you ever become an abomination, but..." she stopped then, and we were silent for a while once again. "As for why I'm trying to help," she started again, "in the eyes of the Order, I have ignored my duty, regardless of my reasons. It won't be pretty for me either if you- if _we_ \- are caught." she finished, and then, for whatever reason, I felt the need to make the silence a little more comfortable.

"Orzammar it is then?" I asked, looking at her. She looked into my eyes for a second, then gave the tiniest of smiles. I returned it with a cocky grin of my own.

"Orzammar it is." she said, and then the silence was comfortable. To this day, I don't know why I didn't just fall into the Fade and leave Relena behind, now that my phylactery was destroyed. I am, however, glad that I didn't. Maker knows, I would've been long dead by now had I done so. But we'll get to that.

 **};{**

Author's note: Delyn's outfit consists of the male versions of The Fugitive's Mantle, The Fugitive's Gauntlets, the boots from Malcolm's Bequest, and The Apostate's Mask from the Mage Item Pack and Mage Item Pack II DLC from Dragon Age 2. His staff is Malcolm's Honor from the same DLC. Relena wears a lighter gray version of Knight-Commander Meredith's armor with the templar sword logo on the chest piece.


	2. Chapter 2: Gherlen's Pass

Disclaimer: I do not own any material related to the Dragon Age franchise. BioWare and EA do.

Author's Note: If you have some constructive criticism (key word being constructive), then I'm all ears. If you're just going to hate on my story, then don't read it. Now, on to the more important business. Anyone planning on continuing to read my stories/chapters as they come out should pay attention to this. From here on out, expect updates to come a lot faster than this one did, as I am adopting a new policy in regards to that. I will not be putting out a chapter every week, and I will not only update the stories that I get reviews for. I write these stories because I want to write them, people reading and enjoying them is just an added bonus. Mini-rant over; I will be typing a thousand words (of the story that I intend to update next) a day, and the next chapter will be published as soon as I finish it. After this update is finished, I will be publishing three new stories, two here, and one on FictionPress. My FictionPress account is TwoWolves. Now, let's see what trouble Delyn and Relena have gotten themselves into while I've been gone, shall we?

Chapter 2: Gherlen's Pass

Relena and I were silent (though the comfortableness of that silence had, unfortunately, faded over the past few hours) for much more of our trek along the Imperial Highway. Yes, I know what you're thinking, 'An apostate and a templar, walking sided-by-side, and the silence isn't comfortable? _Who would have thought_?' Well, you can kiss my backside. After all, are you the one telling the story? No, I didn't think so.

Suffice to say, we were entirely silent for the rest of the, thankfully uneventful, journey back past Kinloch Hold, along the Imperial Highway, and finally, to Gherlen's Pass, a path through the Frostbacks that, if my memory of all those old maps was correct, lead directly to Orzammar's front gates. Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan, and thanks to a traveling dwarf merchant, neither did this. We were about halfway through the Pass when we found ourselves blocked by a light-skinned dwarf with extremely short black hair atop his head, and a beard that really only counted as thick stubble. A long mustache, braided at either end, completed the dwarf look. To be entirely honest, I was rather disappointed that the first dwarf I met didn't have nearly as large a beard as I had imagined all of them having.

But I suppose I was bound to be disappointed in that regard. They couldn't all be so similar. But, my musings aside, the dwarf, followed by the single white ox pulling his cart of wares, was a rather irritable fellow. "I only have two interests: travel, and trade. If you want something else, move out of my way so I can get on the road." Naturally, in my mind, this was an open invitation for me to be just as, if not more, rude in response, especially considering that my current situation and my desire to get to Orzammar as soon as possible had made me more than a little irritable myself. Relena, however, didn't seem to agree that shouting every possible profanity at the arrogant little bastard was the way to go.

"Why are you in such a hurry, ser dwarf?" Relena asked with such politeness that I briefly entertained the thought that it _wasn't_ an act. The dwarf, for his part, looked at me for only half a second, as if to warn me against going through with any of my prepared insults, before turning to Relena and opening his mouth to speak. I was fully expecting him to reiterate his only two interests, so you can imagine my surprise when he actually decided to spare the time to give Relena a real answer.

"I'm in a hurry because Orzammar is going nowhere fast." he said gruffly. Instantly, I felt that cold sense of dread that you feel when your plan gets blown to pieces. Before Relena could question him further, I took that particular duty upon myself.

"What, exactly, do you mean by that?" I asked quickly, some might say too quickly (Relena certainly did, later on) but I was far beyond caring at that point. Really, I shouldn't have been surprised in the least. Escaping from the Chantry and their damn templars would never, hell, couldn't have ever been as simple as just going to Orzammar and asking the dwarves for asylum. But, it had been a brilliant idea (as much as I despised giving any templar, traitor to the Order or not, that much credit for anything) while it was still a feasible one. Of course, there was still the possibility that I was just jumping to conclusions and what the dwarf was about to say would have no bearing on me. Unfortunately, and perhaps naturally, no such luck.

"What don't I mean? Good King Aeducan is dead, along with both his eldest and middle sons, and his youngest son and best friend are warring for the throne, to the point where their supporters slaughter each other in the streets. I may have been cast out the minute I set foot on the surface, but I want to be as far from Orzammar as I possibly can be right now. So will you get out of my way?" he finishes with a glare at me. I was too busy turning this new information over in my head to answer him, to the point that it didn't even register when Relena answered for me, then grabbed me by the arm and pulled me off to one side. I waited until the dwarf was fully out of ear shot before I turned to Relena and told her my thoughts.

"I say we continue on and inquire about the situation ourselves." Almost instantly, her left eyebrow inched upwards as she crossed her arms and cocked her hip. Clearly, this was her way of asking me what in the Maker's name I was thinking without actually asking it. I wasn't one to just let her get away with it, however. My eyes narrowed and my own eyebrows inched downwards until I was glowering. This little stare down continued for almost an entire minute, as I was unwilling to answer her unspoken question or back down, as doing either would give her the idiotic idea that she was the one 'wearing the pants' as it were. Finally, she seemed to get the message.

"Why, exactly?" she asked with an exasperated sigh, clearly irritated that she hadn't won our confrontation. Or, it could have just been that she didn't want to give the templars more time to catch up with us. Thinking on it, I realized that it was probably the second one.

"Simple. We have no reason to believe that he told us the truth." I said, but she was quick on the uptake.

"We have no reason to believe that he didn't either," she said, pausing before adding, "What's the real reason?" I glared at her for a second, but she matched the glare perfectly, and it wasn't long before I relented with a sigh to match the one she had given just a moment ago.

"Even if all of what he said is true, that doesn't necessarily mean that they won't let us in." She shot this one down also.

"If he's correct and the dwarves currently have no King, who exactly do you plan on asking for asylum?" Luckily, I already had an answer for her.

"We don't need to ask anyone. As soon as I step into the city, I'm outside of the Chantry's reach. And if things are really as bad as that dwarf said, I highly doubt the dwarves will care about one outsider squatting in their city." I said, determined to continue on through the Pass and up to Orzammar's front gates. What she asked next threw me for a loop, however, as it was the last thing on my mind, and I had not yet realized my mistake.

" _One_ outsider?" she hissed, a hard glint to her eyes. My own widened considerably, I leaned back rather far, held my hands out in front of me in a placating gesture, and stared at her, both surprised at the sheer power of her anger and realizing my mistake. She only continued to stare icy daggers into my head, as though she could kill me with that look alone. At that moment, I think she wished that she could. I swallowed hard before speaking.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it, it's just that I've always only ever thought in terms of my own survival. I've never really had to worry about anyone else." Turns out, that wasn't entirely the right thing to say either. Or rather, as I would come to realize, my apology had started out just fine, but then it went south, so to speak.

She took a menacing step towards me, and, to my great shame (because I had never before shown a templar that I was afraid of them), I took a single, instinctive step backwards. "You do not need to _worry_ about me. I have been a member of the Templar Order for forty years. _I can handle myself. Understand?_ " she hissed all of this under her breath, her last words spoken with such venom that had it been tangible, I would have dropped dead then and there. Seemingly finished talking, she glared at me as I nodded my head in understanding, and only after the tenth nod did she seem satisfied. Her features softened, but only marginally, and she stood straight once more. Lastly, she removed her hand from the hilt of her sword, a movement that not only drew my eye, but also caused me to sweat a little. I hadn't even noticed her reach for her sword, and given how focused I had been on placating her, as well as the scant inches that had separated us, she could have cut me in half before I could even think of drawing on my magic.

She glanced into my eyes, then gave my face an appraising stare, seemingly searching for any signs that I did not, in fact, understand. Once she was satisfied that my near-frantic nodding had been sincere, she continued. "Well, you do have a point, so let us continue on to Orzammar." And with that, she turned back in the direction from which the dwarven merchant had come and marched off at a brisk pace, as though the argument (if you could even call such a one-sided conversation an argument) had never happened. But it most certainly had, and both of her messages had been perfectly received. First; as she had clearly stated, she could take care of herself just fine. Secondly (and most importantly); She had just as much to lose if we were caught as I did. But, perhaps an even more important lesson; I was not in this alone. It was a comforting thought. So much so, in fact, that when I made to follow her, I could not keep the tiniest of grins from my face.

 **?/\?**

Suffice to say, neither Relena nor I were very pleased when we stepped up to Orzammar's front gates. There were three humans, all men, standing at the gates, speaking to one of three dwarven guards, this one with a black beard as large and intricately braided as I would have expected. One of the humans, a pale-skinned man with short, auburn hair wearing scale mail, was addressing the dwarf in a voice that could only be described as trying far too hard to sound authoritative, and thus instead making himself seem the fool. I didn't care enough about what he was saying to listen to him, and apparently neither did the dwarf, as he had turned to Relena and I as soon as we approached, not even bothering to listen to the man whose, if I was entirely honest, ramblings made him appear to be something of a zealot.

The dwarf wasted no time in addressing us directly, "I don't know what your business in Orzammar might be, human, but I'm afraid you're a little late to conduct that business." I cocked my brow, and I'm sure Relena did also.

"And why is that?" I asked, desperately hoping that the answer wasn't what I thought it would be, but since when has that worked for me?

The dwarf had just opened his mouth to answer, when the blithering idiot (who, unfortunately, seemed to be the spokesperson for the three humans) decided to answer for him. "Apparently, they won't even let us, the messengers of King Loghain, in, so what hope do a templar and her mage prisoner have of convincing this fool?" he sneered, clearly thinking the fact that he served the King made him instantly and entirely better than everyone else around him. I was just about ready to show him just how wrong he was, when Relena beat me to the punch, and not in the way I had expected.

"Wait, did you just say _King_ Loghain?" she asked, an expression of absolute shock on her face. I had never seen her so surprised by anything.

"Of course I did. _King_ Loghain Mac Tir." he said threateningly. Or it would have been threatening if I was even slightly afraid of this fanatical moron. Clearly, Relena shared my fear. Or lack there of it.

"Ferelden is ruled by King _Cailan._ Loghain Mac Tir is only a teyrn." she said, her eyes narrowing on the man. I couldn't blame her. There was something off about this, despite the fact that I had no clue who Ferelden's king was or wasn't, only that there was one. The man stepped a little bit closer to Relena, who now stood in front of me.

"King Cailan died with most of the army at Ostagar. The Grey Wardens proved themselves traitors to the crown and got both themselves and Cailan killed. It was only by King Loghain's tactical withdrawal that the rest of the army survived." The warning in his tone was not in the least intimidating, but my warning seemed to do the trick. The air around us instantly got colder, and a smoldering ball of fire burst to life in my hand. The spokesman stepped back, momentarily shocked out of his arrogance, but the knight behind him reached for his blade, and I could feel the mage accompanying them gathering his own power. But then, my message delivered, I chose to take my what I assumed to be my eldest niece's favored course of action; laugh at stupidity whenever it presents itself. Extinguishing the fireball and raising the temperature back to what it was, I started laughing. Quietly and under my breath, at first, but slowly getting louder in volume, as something the spokesman had said tickled my funny bone.

"What's so funny?" Relena hissed under her breath, seemingly appalled that I was finding humor in such a volatile situation. So, in true, gentlemanly fashion, I explained it to her. Between fits of laughter, of course.

"This walking, talking definition of stupidity," I pointed at the spokesman for emphasis, "is what's so funny. His entire argument falls to pieces when you consider one crucial piece of information." I paused for suspense, enjoying the sight of the spokesman bristle at my insult. "The Grey Wardens couldn't have betrayed the King, for three simple reasons. The Grey Wardens don't serve anyone, so even if they did get the King killed, it wouldn't count as treason. The Grey Wardens aren't stupid enough to attempt a coup, if you could even call it that, in the middle of a battle. And finally, the Grey Wardens' only duty, the only thing they care about, in fact, is to fight darkspawn and stop the Blights when they occur, which means they would have been cutting down darkspawn, not the King and his army." Then, as my fit of laughter stopped, another thought strung me. "Oh and, by the way, this Loghain Mac Tir can't be the King." This seemed to infuriate the man even more than my calling him on his lies directly to his face, something that I was about to do again. "If all those history books I read are accurate, and I know they are, Loghain may have been given the title of teyrn after he aided King Maric in driving out the Orlesian occupation, but he's still a commoner. He has no claim to the throne, through blood or otherwise."

The spokesman, now red with rage, answered this point. "His daughter Anora was King Cailan's queen!" I didn't even wait half a second before I responded.

"Then that means the throne is hers, not his, and he is merely acting as regent, though the fact that his daughter is a fully grown adult capable of making her own decisions throws the need for his regency out the window. Taking all of this in to account, what really happened at Ostagar seems perfectly obvious." I narrowed my eyes at the spokesman, and this time it was I who took a little step forward, and oh Maker was I pleased when he took one backwards. He noticed at the last second and took a step forward, but the damage was done. I knew that I had his fear. "I'd say, given the darkspawns' inability to think for themselves, and your mention of Loghain's tactical retreat, that the plan was for Cailan and his forces to engage the darkspawn head on, and when some form of signal was given, Loghain was to flank the darkspawn. A sound strategy against an army of mindless beasts. I'd also say, given the nature of a blight and the danger to all that it represents, that Cailan requested aid from the Orlesians. Therefore Loghain, foolishly allowing his hatred of Orlais to trick him into thinking the Orlesians are a bigger threat than the Blight, allowed King Cailan and the Grey Wardens to die so that he could claim the throne, despite having no actual claim on it, and then sent you here to try and bully the dwarves into giving him their support without even considering the fact that they have absolutely no legitimate reason or obligation to do so. And judging from your face, I'd say I'm right on the mark."

Every single person around me, Relena, the dwarves, and Loghain's men stared at me as though I had grown a second head. I turned to Relena, winked, then promptly ignored the spokesman and turned to the dwarf who seemed to be in charge. "Is what this fool says true? Are the gates of Orzammar closed to outsiders?" The dwarf's eyes momentarily widened, and before he could ask, I gave him his answer. "We met a dwarven merchant while traveling through Gherlen's Pass. He explained Orzammar's current situation."

"Ah, I see. Well then, my apologies human, but this bag of hot air," he gestured to the spokesman, "did in fact speak the truth. And unless you have some sort of official business in the city, I am not permitted to allow you entry." I sighed heavily, nodded to and thanked the dwarf, then made my way back down the steps to the small market place set up just outside the dwarven city. As I was leaving, I caught some small snippet of the continued conversation between the dwarf and the spokesman, and I couldn't help but smile as the spokesman struggled to stop his voice from shaking. Before I had walked very far, however, Relena sped up enough to get in front of me, then spun around and placed a firm hand on my chest. She looked me in the eyes for a minute, clearly trying to work out what had just happened on her own, but eventually gave up.

"How?" she asked simply, a dumbfounded tone to her voice. In turn, I raised one of my eyebrows.

"Did you ever read any of the countless tomes in the Circle library?" I asked, incredulous. Naturally, she glared at me.

"Of course not. My job was to watch the mages, not to study."

"Well, did you think every single tome in that massive library was about magic and the Fade?" I asked, still incredulous. This time, she was deadpan.

"Once again, of course. It was a tower full of mages, after all." At this, I simply shook my head.

"Forty years, and you didn't read a single book. Now that's a damn shame." I said, still slowly shaking my head. She grit her teeth in response, and I could have sworn I saw a vein popping out on her forehead, but it was probably just my imagination.

"Just answer my question, Amell!" she shouted, not caring whether or not she attracted anyone's attention. Granted, I didn't care much about that either. I grinned, always willing to find the annoyance of others humorous, especially when those others, or other, was a templar.

"Alright, since you asked so nicely. There are thousands of tomes in the Circle library, covering hundreds of different subjects, including history. And I read every single tome in that library over the course of my fifty years in that tower. I know about the Orlesian occupation, the Battle of River Dane, King Maric, Loghain Mac Tir, all of it. I also know what qualifies one to have any sort of claim to the throne, and Teyrn Loghain does not qualify. I also know that Loghain Mac Tir is fanatic in his determination to protect Ferelden, and it is highly likely that he would allow his hatred of the people who enslaved his people for a century to cloud his judgement and convince him that the Blight is not as large a threat as it seems. Furthermore, why in the Maker's name would the dwarves give Loghain their support in combating the Blight when, first, he has nothing that obligates them to do so, and second, a Blight, when the majority of the darkspawn leave the Deep Roads, is practically a holiday for the dwarves. Taking all of that into account, it was actually rather easy to deduce what happened at Ostagar and afterwards." I said matter-of-factly and nonchalantly. She just stared at me as though I had grown a second head and that second head was speaking Qunlat.

"That's...actually rather impressive." she said, her eyes still wide. I simply shrugged, but then I got an idea.

"And now it's your turn." I said, and she was so taken aback that she literally did a double take. Had she been drinking anything, she would've done a spit take, if the look on her face was any indication.

"My turn for what?" she asked, clearly wary of whatever question I might have prepared for her.

"I told you what I did for practically my entire stay at the Circle, but you already knew that. So now, I'll tell you why. Similarly, I am already aware of what you spent the majority of your time doing, so you're going to owe me an explanation of why." I said, and before she could object, or say anything at all for that matter, I continued. "I spent all that time reading and studying up on everything there was to study up on, because I was not only convincing your fellow templars that they needn't worry about the possibility of me escaping, but also preparing myself with any and all knowledge I might need upon my escape. Now, for my question. Why is it that you always watched me so much more closely than the other mages?" At first, she didn't answer, and after a minute or two I was just about to demand one, but then she spoke.

"You managed to fool everyone into believing that you had resigned yourself to your fate. Greagoir, Irving, and everyone else. But you did not fool me. I could tell that you were just as determined to be free as that outrageously persistent apprentice, Anders, I believe his name was. Or at least, that's what everyone called him. Either way, I could tell that you were just like him. Only far more patient. That's why I watched you more closely than any of the others. The only reason you managed to escape at all is because I wasn't assigned to watch over your Harrowing. I knew you had been practicing that rapid movement spell of yours for weeks before your Harrowing. I tried to tell Greagoir, even Irving, but neither were willing to believe that an apprentice could have achieved mastery of such a spell. Nor were they willing to believe that the most well-behaved apprentice in the entire Tower would attempt to escape, not after fifty years of complying with every rule. I'm sure now they wish they had believed me." she explained, and as perfect sense as her reasoning made, I decided to be a little cheeky.

"You sure it didn't have anything to do with you feeling like we 'grew up together'?" I asked, a cocky grin plastered on my face. My grin only grew wider when I noticed a very faint blush come to her cheeks. Meanwhile, a part of me was screaming at me to remember that, whether we were in this together or not, she was still the enemy. I surprised myself when I ignored it.

"Y-yes! Yes I'm absolutely certain that that had nothing to do with it!" she shouted at me, clearly working hard to remove the tint from her cheeks, her fists balled at her side. But before I could continue to tease her, a voice from our right addressed us both.

"Are you two finished bonding, or should I go speak to someone else?" Our conversation forgotten, both Relena and I turned to see a well-built dwarf with long, sandy blond hair, an equally long beard of the same color, both done in braids. His gray eyes were set in a pale-skinned, stoutly built face, and he wore a massive suit of plate armor, with a sword that could be a particularly heavy longsword, but to him was probably a greatsword, strapped to his back. Naturally, I glared at him.

"Our 'bonding' isn't of concern to anyone but us. And just who in the Maker's name are you?" I asked him, folding my arms across my chest and intensifying my glare. He smiled at me, but I did not return the gesture. But he kept on smiling.

"Why, if you put it like that, then I guess I'm nobody." he said as casually as though he was talking about the weather, and as if his answer actually made sense. I shared a confused, somewhat irritated look with Relena.

"You want to take that one?" I asked her, starting to believe that this particular dwarf had gotten just a little bit too close to raw lyrium. As in, 'consumption' close. She didn't even think for half a second, unfortunately.

"Not really. He's all yours." she said nonchalantly, and the look she gave me told me that speaking to the potentially mad dwarf was my punishment for teasing her. Oh well. It's not like it was all that big of a deal, and besides, it was entirely worth it. Sighing, though it was just part of the act, I turned back to the dwarf and addressed him.

"Your meaning?" I asked, just about dreading the answer. Turns out I didn't have to. He looked at me incredulously, apparently shocked that I wasn't able to figure it out for myself.

"I would have thought an apostate," my eyes widened slightly at this, "or any mage, for that matter, would be intelligent enough to figure out my little riddle. You asked who 'in the Maker's name' am I, and so since I don't worship your Maker, that means that, in His name, I'm no one. However, if you just meant 'who are you' with the 'Maker's name' part as a curse, then my name is Teagan Aeducan, second-born son of King Endrin Aeducan, younger brother to the late Prince Trian Aeducan, and older to Prince Bhelen Aeducan. At your service." he said with an extravagant flourish, followed up by a bow. My brows raised in surprise, and I turned to Relena once again.

"How about now? I took the last one, it's only fair you take this one." I said, and delighted in the glare she gave me because she knew I had her there. With a sigh, she looked to Teagan, and initiated the potentially volatile conversation.

"Forgive me Prince," I scowled at that, wondering why she insisted on being so damn polite to everyone but me, "but we had been told that you were dead." she said, a question plainly evident in her voice.

Teagan, instead of being offended, or rather instead of giving any reaction I would have expected, chuckled quietly, though it was a rather dry chuckle ironically dripping with sarcasm, before responding. "Well, that's probably because I was sentenced to walk the Deep Roads, fighting the darkspawn until my ultimate demise, and, in all fairness, I hadn't expected to run into a group of Grey Wardens and accompany them to the surface anymore than the rest of my people." he said matter-of-factly.

This caught my attention, and apparently also Relena's. "Grey Wardens, you say?" she asked him.

"Aye, three of them. Two were forgettable, but their leader wasn't. Dark-skinned human named Duncan. Pretty frightening Blighter once he's got a sword in his hand." he said, and this surprised me.

"How long ago was this?" I asked him, though only to satisfy my curiosity. He looked at me, as did Relena, though hers was an expression of confusion.

"About eight days, I'd say. I know I wasn't in the Deep Roads for very long before meeting the Wardens." he said thoughtfully, thinking back. So he had met Duncan five days before myself. 'The old man sure could move before his untimely demise at Ostagar,' I thought, before noticing that Relena was looking at me with a near pained expression on her face as Teagan, having apparently continued our conversation while my train of thought was occupied, waited expectantly for one of us to say something. Feeling the tiniest bit embarrassed about having to ask this specific question, I reluctantly asked it anyway.

"I'm sorry, I was thinking of something. What was it you said?" I asked, somewhat sheepish. Luckily, Teagan seemed to be a considerably cheerful fellow, and more willing to repeat himself. Relena was glaring daggers at me, though I was coming to suspect that that would become the norm for me before too long.

"I was just asking if you two knew why the guards don't seem to be allowing anyone into Orzammar?" he asked, and I instantly knew why Relena had looked so pained. This dwarf didn't know that his father was dead, nor that his younger brother was at war with an individual who had most-likely been like an uncle to him, and now he was asking us, or rather me, as Relena didn't seem to have any intention of telling him, to break the news to him. There were several ways I could have done it, from letting him down easy, to dodging around the subject. I chose brutal honesty. What? Don't look at me like that, it was the quickest possible means of telling him, and Relena and I were _on the run_ , if you'd care to remember.

"Your father is dead and your brother Trian is at war with your father's oldest friend. I wasn't told his name." I stated bluntly, keeping my face blank, though the fact that I could literally _feel_ Relena's killing intent as well as the devastated look on Teagan's face made it considerably difficult. Then, remarkably, his face morphed into an expression of pure rage.

"Damn you Trian," he shouted, then, as an afterthought, "Thank you for telling me, human. I must go have words with the guard captain." All of this was said in what could only be described as an animalistic growl, and he followed it up by stomping off towards Orzammar's gates. His reaction surprised me, and it clearly surprised Relena even more, given the considerably lesser amount of killing intent emanating from her then. Of course, the confusion in her voice also made it perfectly evident.

"W-what just...?" she started, but was so surprised that she couldn't finish. I, however, had just discovered that we had far less of a lead than either of us had thought.

"Apostate! Traitor! Surrender now and come willingly, or we _will_ use lethal force!" the lead templar out of five shouted at Relena, who was only now turning around, and I. I wasn't about to surrender, and considering the distance between us and them (them fanned out at the entrance to Gherlen's Pass, us standing near the monument in the middle of the clearing) as well as a certain 'fast travel' spell that doubled as an attack, I had the advantage. Without telling Relena what I was about to do, I grabbed her by the wrist closest to me, and fell into the Fade, surging forward and through the lead templar, freezing him solid. Unwilling to waste any more time letting other templar search parties get closer, I didn't bother to fall out of the Fade and deal with the other four, instead continuing through Gherlen's Pass, my only thought to get as far away from the templars as possible, before I ran out of mana.

 **];[**

Author's Note: Sorry for the chapter only being half as long as the last one and not having nearly as much action, but every good story has it's filler chapters. Besides, we met an important character in this chapter, and there was a little bit of action at the end, so don't complain too much. If you do at all. Remember to check for my other stories. The first one I'll be posting will be The Other Side, an SI/OC Naruto story. After that it'll be the first in a considerably long series, The Definition Series, titled Definition of Adventurer, an OC Tomb Raider (the reboot series) story. After that it'll be my original story, titled The Truth of Freedom, on FictionPress. Like I said before, my profile on FP is TwoWolves.


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